On the official puppy linux irc channel you have probably heared me yammering on about how I would like to get apt-get to work with puppy.
So finally I got around to it and I have a solution available at my website:

http://www.thepussycatforest.info/apt-get

I havent learned how to make .pets and things yet, but this is pretty straight forward. Just download every file in the directory on that site. Simply click on the 4x .deb packages and move the status, sources.list and available files to their respective dirs on your puppy 5 lupu installation and you are ready to rock.

There is a README.txt file on my site explaining the ins and outs of to set it up and how it works on a puppy system.

Yes, it works on frugal systems aswell as full HDD installs.

It took me a while to setup the status file propperly it is more than 4000 lines of code and I typed it all by hand as I do not know of any automation processes. The status file contains all the packages that a standard puppy 5 lupu install contains but i have not listed the dependencies for all the standard packages, this means that apt-get removing packages that come standard with puppy will not work propperly. However, if you apt-get install something then apt-get remove it, the uninstallation of that program will work just fine.

The status and available files get populated properly by apt as you install and remove stuff.

Apart from not being useful for uninstalling default puppy apps from a clean install, the only other limitation with this is some spam when it actually installs a program. Its error spam due to an empty available file but this is not critical and even tho it complains everything still works fine.
Also please remember that if you have installed programs some way other than using apt, the status file will not know about these programs, so if you install firefox from a .pet you cant uninstall from apt.

I have tested this with a few small progs like nano and things and its awesome.

I think this will be useful for people (like me) who run a cli only server and would like to have a text based package manager. Also apt is very good at dealing with dependencies and may be less annoying than dealing with the ubuntu repos from the ppm.

Also I know the source.list file kinda sucks and is lame. At present I have only listed a few there more as a proof of concept than anything else,
If someone has a awesome pimped out source.list file they wouldnt mind sharing then ill include that file on my site instead of this lame one.

Im sorry about that readme.txt not being accessable it must have been corrupted somehow. Ive posted a new file on that site " install.txt " and ive surfed over to it myself and im sure its working now.

In answer to your question about adding that repo, yes you can.
I think adding debian repos might work ok aswell.

incase there are more probs with the .txt file instructions then
to install all you have to do it download every file in that web directory
and click on the .deb files in turn. Then move or copy:

let me know if you have any more probs or the .txt is in accessable or something. if there is any more probs ill simply make a .tar.gz file and post it here and list the instructions here. im only hosting from my site to save other people bandwidth etc.

Hi as pointed out to me the README.txt file wasnt viewable by a browser, i have fixed the problem, the file is called install.txt and it works now. somehow the old file got corrupted or something i dunno.

I have only just realised after setting up apt-get on a fresh lupu installation that you need devx installed. I may be able to get around this and just include a few files that apt-get needs from the devx to work.

devx is a large file and this just may put apt-get out of reach for ppl who want very minimal installs.

i have included the lupu_devx_500.sfs file on my site, i know its available everywhere else but if you are downloading the packages for apt-get and need the devx, its there in one easy place.

Also ill update my install.txt to include intructions for installing the devx.sfs file onto full hdd installs

What is the most complex program you have apt-gotted (if that is termed correctly)
into Lucid?
Can apt get also download dependencies?
Not used it much

Thanks for advice

Hi Lobster here is an example of apt-get dependencies handling:

# apt-get install xaos
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
libaa1 libgpm2 libgsl0ldbl zlib1g
Suggested packages:
gpm gsl-ref-psdoc gsl-doc-pdf gsl-doc-info gsl-ref-html
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libaa1 libgpm2 libgsl0ldbl xaos
The following packages will be upgraded:
zlib1g
1 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 703 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,577kB of archives.
After this operation, 5,292kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
libgpm2 zlib1g libaa1 libgsl0ldbl xaos
Install these packages without verification [y/N]?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was using nano as an example because before i had a working status file it was wanting to download 84mb and almost the entire base system ti install nano, i knew the status file was working when after apt-get install nano was entered it was going to only fetch one file.

Also be aware that apt-get mostly likes to install the lastest version of stuff so sometimes it might seem its doubling up on stuff you already have but there is probably a 0.1 version number difference and will wanna install it.

My experience with puppy package manager is that it handles depencencied woefully, but the apt-get is damn near fool proof, it will err on the side of downloading stuff rather than not.
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That means a complete usage would entail installing a rather large sfs
Are you aware of what is required from devx? Apt compiles programs if required
using c and c++ and the Linux core libraries. Is that right?
Does Lucid with the devx have the Linux core?

Is it possible to use an 'apt no compiling' option?
That might make it suitable for Lucid . . .

Am I right that with the right options you could use devx
and apt have the compiled dependencies and then provide a pet?

Sorry for all the questions
My policy is Quickpet (or Ubuntu software manager)
then synaptic and then (and only then) apt-get

Dont worry about the GPG errors this is non critical error spam. apt-get works but it does complain sometimes. these repos its complaining about will still work.

Regarding your missing lib that apt depends on I have uploaded it to www.thepussycatforest.info/apt-get
you can download it from here and click on it and it should auto install.

I didnt get this problem you are having but I spose no two systems are alike if they have even slightly different software installed. Please let me know if you are missing any other libs and things ill upload those as well.

That means a complete usage would entail installing a rather large sfs
Are you aware of what is required from devx? Apt compiles programs if required
using c and c++ and the Linux core libraries. Is that right?
Does Lucid with the devx have the Linux core?

Is it possible to use an 'apt no compiling' option?
That might make it suitable for Lucid . . .

Am I right that with the right options you could use devx
and apt have the compiled dependencies and then provide a pet?

Sorry for all the questions
My policy is Quickpet (or Ubuntu software manager)
then synaptic and then (and only then) apt-get

I am sorry but I have basicly no answers for your questions.
Only that yes apt seems to need devx, and no I dont know what files from
devx it needs. I will try and find this out myself later as I am kinda burnt out at the moment, after i stop having nightmares about the status file and my fingertips grow back from typing it out ill spend some more time looking under the hood.

I am aware that devx is huge and it may put apt out of reach of alot of
users that dont have that extra 120 or so mb hdd space or ram or whatever. I was quite dissapointed when I noticed that apt-get didnt work without devx, but hey that the way it goes.

I am not knowledgeable about all the compiling stuff after apt-get downloads. I dont even know how to make a .pet let alone rig apt-get to spit one out. I have no idea about devx containing the linux core or even what that means in an accurate sense.

There is also another issue i have failed to address about apt on this forum.

some of what apt seems to want to download may seem to be excessive in size. This is because unlike propper pets and things, the apt-get packages that it will try to install are not timmed down. The puppy package manager has the option to trim the fat, apt doesnt do this.

Iglueder who you all probably know from the irc chan or this forum has made a script that can create a new status file in a few seconds from a txt file that contains the list of packages. This is cool coz it means that when the next version of puppy is released all we have to do is grab hold of the package list, run the script, install the debs and boom, apt-get working on a new puppy release. Well i thought this was cool. Saves having to type the thing manually if you want apt-get on new puppy releases.

I was quite dissapointed when I noticed that apt-get didnt work without devx, but hey that the way it goes.

I understand the work required to set up another package management system and do the coding on something that wasnt set up for it such as puppy
I got slackware package tools and slitaz package tools running on a puppy version both very small and fast I later decided to go with full package compatibility thats probably your next step using deb packages

and apt-get is much more complex because of the dependency resolving

it would be nice if you could diff out the original files to your modified files
since not many people will be able to jump in and figure out what changed and where its also good for yourself while its still fresh in your mind

the trouble you are having with devx isnt that complicated
after all the coding you had to do

it just requires you to check dependencies on the bin's that are used by
apt-get in other words what does apt-get itself depend on

making a cut down "devx" is no big deal I cut devx down to 40 mb and it still compiles nicely so you could cut it down a lot smaller and even upgrade the gcc easily

I am not a debian so called user debian does have a good system but official package management does interest me
and I wanted to wish you good luck and say thanks for posting your work

Joe_________________debian wheezy ,linux mint, slackware I use them all and they all have good points
Mint would be best for general users though